Three weeks until Season 6 of LOST begins – Three weeks until the Final season of LOST begins – Three weeks until questions begin to get answered or so we think. Last year, as I have done every year, I wrote my own blogs before reading everyone else’s more excellent blogs about what we had just seen & how I saw it. Hindsight is almost always 20/20 or better and as I have started rewatching season 5, I thought I would go back and take a look at what I was thinking at that time too. I am not horribly wrong a lot of the time and not entirely right either. I am just a fan who doesn’t read spoilers, doesn’t play the off season games and doesn’t look for anything that is not actually shown to us on the screen. With that being said, here is my blog covering the 2 episode Season 5 premier from last year. have fun telling me how stupid I am….

Thanks to a heavy dose of real life in my real life I never quite got around to writing down the LOST blog for the season opening 2 hours that I had banging around in my head and now with episode 3 bearing down on us, I thought I should get a few quick thoughts down for us to all ponder…

PREVIOUSLY ON LOST… – easily the best 3 words spoken on TV…

I had that clock back in middle school – yes, I’m old…

Skipping record – symbolism & foreshadowing all wrapped up in one – of course it is always easier to see after the fact…

OSAMA BIN JACK – pill addiction has not been kind to Jack – I still wish he had jumped off the bridge…when last we saw Jack he was looking at the dead body of John Locke and Benjamin Linus had appeared on the scene. Now it’s Jack’s job to try and get the gang together and put on a show in the old barn, oops – I mean, and get them ALL (including a dead Locke) to return to the island. Good luck with that – Kate hates him almost as much as I do & Hurley is at Shady Acres and doesn’t trust Jack. Even when Jack cleans himself up, he looks like hell. If I worked at a hospital, I would never let him anywhere near a medicine cabinet, so I am stunned that no one tried to stop him when he brought in the dead Pakistani on the couch. I am glad that Jack has been shown to be wrong and I will kill the writers & producers if they have Jack be the hero in the end…

KATE – she will never go back to the island – especially after Claire came to her in a dream (which may have been reality but on this show, who knows ?) – so when the lawyers show up at the door demanding a blood sample from Claire’s kid, we all know she is going run, it’s what she knows – we don’t see a lot of Kate but we do see her go to meet Sun for the first time since they left the island – Sun doesn’t blame her for saying she would go to get Jin on the freighter but not being able to do it but does she ? The accompanying flashback could be viewed that way but you can also see Jack pulling Kate back to the chopper. Could Sun be blaming Jack ? Wasn’t I talking about Kate ? Who is the mystery client that wants the blood sample ? The obvious choice is Ben so he can make Kate realize that the island is the only place she has left to run so that means it will be someone else though I don’t think it was Sun…

When did 323 become a Southern California area code for mobile #’s ? I didn’t think it was back in 2007…

SUN – she has a second conversation with Widmore only this time it is in a locked room in Heathrow Airport where she very succinctly says that she wants to kill Ben. She also talks to Kate as we mentioned before. The one thing I noticed was that Sun looked really thin & harder when her hair was up but then I would probably be that way too if I saw my husband blow up (or did he?) and had to raise a newborn child all while lying to the world and plotting revenge against Ben & her father – though I keep hoping that she will also blame Jack…

HURLEY – hasn’t Hurley always been the voice of the viewer and the key to our understanding ? Will we ever find out what his numbers really mean ? Were we ever clear on why the button needed to be pushed every 108 minutes ? Would you have even a semi-normal chance at life if Cheech were your dad ? Is it any surprise that he can see & talk to dead people ? He told Sayid that if Sayid would ever need him in the future he wouldn’t be there yet there he is driving him around and then letting him be taken to Osama Bin Jack. And how about that look in his eyes as he was handcuffed by the police as a way to escape from Ben…oh yeah, Libby says hi…(second best three words on TV)

Neil was wearing a red shirt – any surprise when he becomes expendable ?

SAYID – when last we saw him, we thought he was working for Ben but based on his comments to Hurley about not trusting Ben, he may be regretting that decision. Loved it during the fight scene that he fought through a coma inducing tranquilizer dart, smacked the bad guy with the convenient frying pan in the kitchen and then killed him with a dishwasher. Yet another reason to hate washing dishes in my book. Osama Bin Jack does bring him back to life at the end of the show with a drug cocktail that he probably brews up at home everyday anyway. I really hoped that he would choke Jack to death when he came to but no such luck. I think it will have to be Sayid that somehow saves Hurley from the cops but we shall see.

Does Lapidus have to go back to the island too ? If Desmond goes back, does Penny have to go too ? If Penny does come with Desmond does that throw off the island’s feng shui so it skips to a Barry Manilow song ? With the island jumping back & forth in time, will Nikki & Paulo make a cameo reappearance ?

SAWYER & JULIET – LOVED the first hour where Sawyer’s biggest concern, other than when & where the hell they were, was finding a shirt. He assumes the leadership role well. He interacts well with Daniel, spars well with Miles and seems to have already bonded with Juliet…and Juliet has taken a somewhat secondary role for right now but as they skip through time, I can’t see how her knowledge of the island & the Dharma stations doesn’t help them.

How did I not say “WEDDING RINGS !!!” as soon as I mentioned Desmond & Penny ? Well I did when I was watching it but not when I was typing it.

Who is the lady in the butcher shop ? When did she make it off the island ? Why did she make it off the island ? How did she make it off the island ? Haven’t we seen her before ?

BEN – so he isn’t in charge ? Is the lady from the antique shop really Mrs. Jacob ? Why is she wearing Dumbledore’s robe ? Is Ben losing his touch ? He wasn’t able to talk Hurley into joining him and he even had trouble with Jack. Even butcher lady didn’t seem to have full loyalty to him. We knew his power base was crumbling back on the island but did it also translate to off the island as well ? He certainly seemed like a lackey at the end as he reported his loss of Hurley to the cops and as he begged for more than 70 hours. I don’t expect Ben to be down long. He has a way of slithering back to the top and once he gets to the island, things will be different.

Richard isn’t any different but then again, Richard has never been any different. I am still convinced that he one of the crew of the Black Rock. His knowledge of the island is too great.

DANIEL – He is first seen in the opening bumping into the video doctor (name escapes me at breakfast) down in the Orchid right after the accidental discovery of the Wheel by the construction workers. He is definitely present day Daniel (and he is the only Dharma worker with a beard) and he gazes upon the holes in the bedrock with some knowledge as to what must be done. This scene will be repeated in a future episode. Daniel is easily the most important character next to DESMOND at this point in the story. He is the only one (besides Richard) that understands what is going on right now on the island and the only one that can do something about it. If you remember from the most excellent Season 4 episode, THE CONSTANT, Daniel wrote at the end that Desmond would be his “constant” in his notebook and he remembered that before he went and knocked on the hatch door. We never did hear his mother’s name back at Oxford but we can’t help but think that it is the antiques lady. (mmm – that Red Herring was tasty)

And then there is LOCKE – He finds himself alone in the jungle. He witnesses Eko’s brother’s plane crash. He gets shot by Ethan. He is given the compass that points North and that will be Richard’s “constant” once they meet again and he saves Sawyer & Juliet from the former Dharma guards in a very Others like manner as he strides from the jungle. Richard told him that in order to save the island, he will have to die. As we saw at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Locke will make the ultimate sacrifice for the Island.

So where does that leave us ? It leaves us with a ton of questions and me with no time to answer them until I get delayed at the airport later today as I try to fly home into a snow & ice storm. So talk amongst yourselves. Answer each other’s questions and tell me what I missed.

Quietly hoping I don’t have to land in the Bay of Bayonne…swampy abides…